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About Michael J. Miller

Miller, who was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine from 1991 to 2005, authors this blog for PC Magazine to share his thoughts on PC-related products. No investment advice is offered in this blog. All duties are disclaimed. Miller works separately for a private investment firm which may at any time invest in companies whose products are discussed in this blog, and no disclosure of securities transactions will be made.

ThinkPad Yoga: My Favorite 2-in-1

One of the more interesting business laptops I have used lately has been Lenovo's ThinkPad Yoga. It looks like a traditional business ultrabook, except that it flips over to become a tablet. And when I say flip over, that's exactly what it feels like: the screen can flip back completely around so that it lies flat on the back of the keyboard to become a tablet. Lenovo has been using this idea in other Yogas, but this is the first such machine to be designated a ThinkPad and aimed at the business audiences. As such, it fills an unusual space in the market.

Used as a traditional notebook, the ThinkPad Yoga is a very nice travelling companion. At 3.5 pounds, it is light, although a bit more than the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (with touch screen) at 3.2 pounds. Its 12.5-inch display is a little smaller than the 13.3-inch one on the X1, but the full HD (1,920-by-1,080) resolution makes it sharp. You can get it with a variety of processors and hard drives: the version I tried had a 1.9GHz Intel Core i5-4300U and a 256GB SSD, with a list price of $1,679; other versions start at $949 for a version with a 1.7GHz Core i3-4010U and a 500GB hard drive. Depending on your processor choice, performance is equivalent to other similar business notebooks, including Lenovo's ThinkPad X240 and T440s. (Note that while I got good performance, PCMag got slower results on the unit it tested than other units with similar processors, and I'm not sure why.)

Battery life was decent but not special; in our test loading a series of websites every few seconds in a repeating order, it lasted about three hours and 22 minutes, which was notably shorter than the 14-inch notebooks I recently tried. Unlike the X240 and T440s, it has a built-in, not user-replaceable, battery. In real use, I found I could go a morning or afternoon without charging, but it wouldn't last the full day.

One of the only drawbacks to its use as a traditional notebook is a relative lack of ports. It has two USB 3.0 ports (one with extra power), a 4-in-1 card reader, and a micro-HDMI port. It does come with a USB-to-Ethernet adapter, but that's one more thing to carry; alternatively you can use a docking station or just Wi-Fi. (It supports dual-band 802.11ac.)

Of course, the point of the unit is to flip it over and use it as a Windows tablet, and that presents its own opportunities and challenges. It flips over easily, and does come up in tablet mode quite well. There's a rotation lock button to keep the orientation the way you'd like it to. One interesting aspect is that because of the way it flips, the keyboard now becomes the bottom of the tablet: the keyboard is disabled in this mode, but it still takes a bit of getting used to the feel of a keyboard in back. Unlike the consumer-oriented Yogas, this one has a retractable keyboard. The keys are still uncovered, and you can feel them on the backside in tablet mode, but this arrangement does seem to provide a bit more protection for the keys. I didn't find it a problem, but it may not be right for everyone.

The fully retractable hinge also allows for two other modes – stand mode (above), where you put the screen in front, with the keyboard flat behind it, which is quite good for watching TV shows or movies; and tent mode, where you would use the screen and the main unit as two sides, which is surprisingly useful for reading in tight spaces (such as on a tray table on an airplane.) These modes sound kind of gimmicky, but they are more useful than you might think.

The biggest issue was one that comes with the territory. Being a convertible and thus including the keyboard and all those ports, it's just heavier than a standalone tablet. At 3.4 pounds, it's twice the weight of a Samsung Galaxy NotePro which has a 12.2-inch display, and more than three times the weight of an iPad Air. As a result, it's hard to hold in your lap for a long period of time.

And of course, there aren't as many real tablet applications for Windows as there are for iPads or Android tablets, though I've lately been much happier with a number of the magazine apps, etc. (and of course, there are a tremendous number of legacy Windows apps). So for a typical consumer, you might be happier with a lightweight notebook plus a lightweight tablet.

On the other hand, for organizations developing their own tablet apps (or what Microsoft is now deeming "universal" apps) having a machine that's capable of running these, as well as running the legacy apps, may be a big plus. After all, it is more convenient from an IT perspective to have one managed device that does both things. And lots of users (me included) still need a keyboard for working with long documents, or with complex spreadsheets.

Compared with other "hybrids" or "2-in-1"s (as Intel is now calling the category), I find myself liking the Yoga a lot. It's lighter than tablets with removable dockable keyboards, yet really feels like a business laptop, without any compromises as a result.

The bottom line is that if you want or need a business notebook computer that can easily switch to being a Windows tablet, the ThinkPad Yoga is a great choice. How many users fit that description is an open question.

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